Serbia is a small country with too many shelters and dog catchers pounds. Conditions are terrible. In Belgrade, we have five shelters, in which there is no killing, but if someone wants to come to adopt a dog, they can come and are only shown a few dogs. This is very little in relation to the total number of dogs in the shelter, knowing that we have several thousand dogs sentenced to life imprisonment. Belgrade has two million inhabitants and residents would be able to adopt all those dogs, but they prefer to buy a pure breed dog. Also, no one can come to the shelter to look at the condition of the dogs, to take a photos, to help them to find a home - all this is prohibited. There is no shelter where people can come to walk dogs, to give them a little love and attention. They live their lives invisible. In smaller cities, the situation is always tragic, dog catchers catch the dogs, place them in small cages, kill them once a week with inhumane methods, often before then the dogs eat one another. Each local government allocates very large funds for the killing injections, but everywhere someone is taking that money, and dogs are killed with shovels or injection of detergent. In these areas no one wants to come to adopt a dog from a shelter, because people don't care of it- they need dog on the chain, barking at strangers, and if it does not work, they will take him and leave somewhere where hunters will kill him, be crushed by a car or taken by dog catchers.
Even in Belgrade there are not high standards of shelters, some are open before obtaining a licence, in some sick dogs are not treated, and die without receiving medical attention. I have taken many dogs from the pound, but I can not find homes for them; they live in boarding houses for years, and although I had good intentions, they have only one prison replaced for another. But the hardest thing is that anyone can say that he was bitten by a dog, without proof and the dog will immediately go to the shelter
How do you feel when a dog is successfully rehomed?